Via Sentencing Lsw and Policy, Attorney General Eric Holder today spoke at the event "“Rethinking Federal Sentencing Policy: 25th Anniversary of the Sentencing Reform Act." His remarks are here.

The AP reports he is soliciting cocaine sentencing reform.

"This administration firmly believes that the disparity in crack and powdered cocaine sentences is unwarranted," Holder said. "It must be eliminated."

As I noted a few days ago, Holder spoke to judges about sentencing last week at the D.C. Judicial Conference. I opined he was trying, but needed to try harder to light a fire under Congress to revise both cocaine penalties and mandatory minimums. Today he clearly called for a 1:1 sentencing ratio for crack and powder, instead of saying "if" a 1:1 ratio "is our goal." I'm glad to see him stepping up the pressure. [More...]

There are reports of brutal assaults on protesters in Tehran. There are eyewitness reports of people being thrown off bridges.

At least two trusted sources described wild and violent conditions at a part of Tehran where protesters had planned to demonstrate. “They were waiting for us,” the source said. “They all have guns and riot uniforms. It was like a mouse trap.”

“I see many people with broken arms, legs, heads — blood everywhere — pepper gas like war,” the source said. Around “500 thugs” with clubs came out of a mosque and attacked people in the square, another source said. The security forces were “”beating women madly” and “killing people like hell,” the source said.

Best way to follow the updates live is on Twitter. Try #Tehran, #IranElection. HuffPo is live-blogging information. and CNN is on it as well.

Navanethem Pillay, a lawyer from South Africa who serves as the U.N.'s top Human Rights offical, criticized President Obama and the U.S. today over the continued detention of Guantanamo detainees:

In her most detailed statement on U.S. detention policy, the South African lawyer criticized President Obama's decision to hold some suspected terrorists in detention indefinitely without a trial. She also called for a probe into officials who participated in torture sessions or provided the legal justification for it.

"People who order or inflict torture cannot be exonerated, and the roles of certain lawyers, as well as doctors who have attended torture sessions, should also be scrutinized," Pillay, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said in a statement dedicated to victims of torture.

[More...]

Richard Falkenrath, head of NYPD's terrorism squad is truly clueless...and spreading fear-engendering disinformation.

Falkenrath is arguing against trying terrorism suspects in U.S. courts. Who is this guy? A former senior domestic security official in the Bush administration.

Falkenrath Complaint Item #1: The cases will eat up valuable federal court resources. Does it not occur to him that the answer is to reserve the federal courts for serious federal crimes and take drug crimes and other cases that can be equally tried in state courts to them? We have over-criminalized the federal courts for the past few decades. Tell Congress to stop passing laws that put these offenders in the federal system. And tell the DOJ to decline prosecution in favor of state courts. Problem solved. [More...]

The final act on America's Got Talent tonight. Great singers with a very moving story.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Policies that were wrong under George W. Bush are no less wrong because Barack Obama is in the White House.

[It is] distressing is the curtain of secrecy the Obama administration has kept drawn over shameful abuses that should be brought into the light of day. . . . The Obama administration is also continuing the Bush administration’s abuse of the state-secrets privilege. . . . The Bush and Obama view of the state-secrets privilege effectively bars any real examination of such egregious mistakes.

The new president’s excessively cautious approach to the national security and civil liberties outrages of the Bush administration are unacceptable, and the organizations and individuals committed to fairness, justice and the rule of law — the Center for Constitutional Rights, the American Civil Liberties Union, and many others — should intensify their efforts to get the new administration to do the right thing.

(Emphasis supplied.) To be fair, Herbert criticizes some Obama policies that I actually agree with. But if you disagree with these and others, take Herbert's advice to heart -- "intensify your efforts to get [Obama] to do the right thing."

Speaking for me only

I have been quite critical of President Obama, but I listened to much of his press conference today and I liked his performance very much (Partial transcript here.) Of what I heard, there was almost nothing he said nor in the way he said it that I can find fault with. I've always said that what President Obama has said is almost exactly in line with my own views.

More . . .

Dick Cheney and Kevin Kadamus both understood that safe hunters never shoot until they can see and identify their targets. Cheney nonetheless shot his friend, Harry Whittington, who soon proclaimed that the shooting was accidental and, upon his discharge from the hospital, expressed his sorrow "for everything Vice President Cheney and his family have had to deal with." No criminal charges were filed against Cheney. Kadamus shot his 17 year old son, Jacob, who died. That shooting was clearly accidental, but Kadamus has been charged with manslaughter. Why?

The game warden who arrived in time to watch Jacob die in his father's arms insists that hunters do not shoot other hunters by accident.

[more ...]

Riffing off of Ed Kilgore, Digby writes:

[I]f Obama still wants to emulate the great "game changer" himself, Ronnie Reagan, that is exactly what he would do. Reagan used his personal popularity to get rank and file Democrats to support his policies. And he rhetorically always framed his policies as the common sense policies of the everyman out in the country, and then they backed it up with polling that showed that the people trusted him.

Obama can pass health care with Democrats and then legitimately call it bipartisan by citing public support. But he has to not care that David Broder and David Brooks have a hissy fit over it. They do not speak for Americans; they don't even speak for Republicans on this one. This is what the bully pulpit is all about. He can take his case directly to the people and if he backs a real plan, with real teeth, he can get it passed, I don't have any doubts. . . .

(Emphasis supplied.) Let me note that Reagan learned the trick from FDR. I repeat my refrain, if real health care reform does not happen, it will be because President Barack Obama failed, not Ben Nelson or Max Baucus. That is how history will remember it and how the voters will think about it in 2012. Maybe that will incentivize Rahmbo.

Speaking for me only

Bernie Madoff is scheduled to be sentenced June 29. His lawyers are requesting a sentence of less than life in prison for the 71 year old financier. They request 12 years, or a 15 to 20 year sentence. They say he has a life expectancy of about 13 years.

You can read his lawyers' letter here (pdf.) In the letter, they attach life expectancy information and data on the sentences in other fraud cases.

The Government has filed 140 pages of e-mails and letters from victims.

Ed McMahon, best known for being Johnny Carson's sidekick on The Tonight Show, has died at 86. He suffered from bone cancer and had been ill many months.

With his broad, genial, regular-guy features, Mr. McMahon had the face of someone you would buy a used car from. Indeed, for decades he was one of television’s most ubiquitous pitchmen, selling everything from boats to beer.

But it was in the role of the faithful Tonto to Carson’s wry Lone Ranger that Mr. McMahon made his sideman’s mark.

On his Tonight Show gig:

“I laugh for an hour and then go home,” Mr. McMahon once said. “I’ve got the world’s greatest job.”

R.I.P. Mr. McMahon.

The Boston Globe has this interesting excerpt from the book The Fence: A Police Cover-Up Along Boston's Racial Divide by Dick Lehr. The book tells the story of Mike Cox, an undercover police officer who was mistakenly beaten by fellow officers, only to endure harassment (and worse) as he waited for the police department to acknowledge and investigate the officers' mistake.